


Painful Little Happiness

by ThereIsNoTragedyInThat



Series: Spirits and Cocaine [2]
Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst, Contemplation, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt, Falling In Love, Guilt, Implied Sexual Content, Infidelity, Insecurity, M/M, Sad and Sweet, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28991091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat/pseuds/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat
Summary: Javier watched Steve's sleeping form next to him and tried to ignore the loving, aching, guilt in his chest.
Relationships: Steve Murphy/Javier Peña
Series: Spirits and Cocaine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100027
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	Painful Little Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Laying together

Javi sighed as he skimmed the file in his lap, cigarette burning too low in his other hand. The night was cool, his window thrown wide open to enjoy the novelty, sheets wrapped messily around his legs. Gooseflesh had started to travel across his bare chest, almost enough to prompt a shiver but he didn’t bother trying to wrestle any more covers from the body next to him, wasn’t interested in waking his partner in the dead of night.

His gaze drifted over, file momentarily forgotten once again as he took in the sight of Steve curled on his side, head resting against Javi’s hip bone, looking all the world like the epitome of comfort. Not for the first time, the urge to shift down and gather the man in his arms, settled in his chest, the promise of something he would never come back from.

They’d had rough day and Connie was long gone, unable to offer whatever comforts she might have otherwise provided and Javi was a fool. He tried not to think about the ring that still sat innocuously on Steve’s finger, tried not to think about how the metal felt pressing into his slick skin. That way lie madness and if he let himself sink a little too far into his feelings, there would be no coming back from it.

Putting out his cigarette, he closed the file and tossed it on his nightstand, considered sleeping just like that, sitting up against the headboard before dismissing the thought. They’d fucked and touched and came, lying next to him shouldn’t feel so ridiculously taboo. Shaking his head, Javi slipped down until he was laying properly next to Steve, a sliver of space between them.

His eyes had just started to fall closed when a gentle sigh came from the man beside him, followed by a calloused hand dragging itself across the short distance to settle over Javi’s waist. He froze, the touch casual and proprietary in a way that made his heartbeat like drum in his chest, leaving him staring uncomprehendingly as he was absently tugged closer. Javi found himself with Steve’s face pressed against his shoulder, not unlike it had been against his hip, and decidedly caught up in his embrace.

Javier stared up at his cracked ceiling, body still and unmoving, settling into his lumpy uncomfortable bed, while Steve’s warmth seeped into him, his breath ghosting over his skin, and those familiar, calloused fingers gripping his side.

It was impossible not to drown in the aching, heartbroken thing that had found a home in his chest. Above him was Steve’s apartment, filled to the brim with relics of his wife and his daughter. Little of it had changed, the entire place like snapshot of the moment Steve’s life was upended and he lost the woman he loved, the person he could go home to at the end of the night when gunfire still echoed in his ears.

Javi didn’t like to kid himself.

Steve had been spending more and more time in his apartment, seemed to cling to him like a lifeline and Javier hadn’t been weary enough, hadn’t been strong enough when those hands had drifted across his skin and those familiar fucking eyes looked at him with a warmth that made his stomach drop.

He had always been on the sharper side of selfishness. Javi took care of his people, would lay down his life for them in a heartbeat, whether that be his informants, his partner, hell even Connie had gone to him when hiding a fucking communist under her roof…and still he’d gone and taken the one thing that should have been off limits by a god damn mile.

The worst part of it all, was that he hadn’t felt this good, this settled in a very long time. When his eyes drifted over Steve’s form, he could imagine waking up next to him in the morning, watch him get dressed, watch him slick back his hair and roll his eyes as he made fun of his tie and his get up for the office. He could imagine all that because a strange version of it had been playing out for the past couple of weeks, but with Steve on his couch and bitching about his back every time he managed to stumble his way into the kitchen.

Around his waist, Steve’s arm squeezed lightly and then a leg was hooking itself around his own, and Javi watched quietly as he invade his space, shoving himself impossibly closer. The man was good at that, had been doing it since the first day they met, getting right up in his face, eyes blazing with a determination that was painfully naïve, had since inserted himself in everything, always ready to have his back.

Hesitantly, Javi lifted his arm, watched Steve immediately tuck his face into the side of his chest, and slowly, like he was handling a grenade, encircled the man pressed up against him and settled in hand on his bare back. There was a quiet huff, another squeeze of his waist and then everything went still, like this was always meant to be.

Which had to be the worst part.

Because in the morning, Steve would startle awake and Javi already knew he planned to be long gone. Because in the morning he’d realize what he’d done, what they had done and would inevitably think of his wife. Because in the morning they’d have to be nothing other than partners again, if they could even be that, and Javi was going to lose the one thing that had started to feel right in this whole fucked up mess they’d gotten themselves into.

But that was tomorrow.

For now, Javi would pretend, would allow himself this small reprieve. He turned his head until he could inhale the stale scent of sweat and the heady, familiar smell that was all Steve, buried his nose in his hair and hugged him closer. One by one, his muscles relaxed into the mattress, into Steve, and let his eyes flutter closed on a soft exhale, tried to banish the fear and uncertainty, and focus his entire being on this one moment, this one beautiful, happy moment that he’d been allowed.


End file.
